Featured Quote:"A believer may pass through much affliction, and yet secure very little blessing from it all. Abiding in Christ is the secret of securing all that the Father meant the chastisement to bring us." - Andrew Murray

I wonder if this thread will another saved always saved thread? hey it might take the focus off it for a while anyway, I am doing all I can to help.:-P

Pope: Other Christian denominations not true churches

Associated Press

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy  Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released today that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

On Saturday, Benedict revisited another key aspect of Vatican II by reviving the old Latin Mass. Traditional Catholics cheered the move, but more liberal ones called it a step back from Vatican II.

Benedict, who attended Vatican II as a young theologian, has long complained about what he considers the erroneous interpretation of the council by liberals, saying it was not a break from the past but rather a renewal of church tradition.

In the latest document  formulated as five questions and answers  the Vatican seeks to set the record straight on Vatican II's ecumenical intent, saying some contemporary theological interpretation had been "erroneous or ambiguous" and had prompted confusion and doubt.

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy's Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession  the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.

The Rev. Sara MacVane of the Anglican Centre in Rome, said there was nothing new in the document.

"I don't know what motivated it at this time," she said. "But it's important always to point out that there's the official position and there's the huge amount of friendship and fellowship and worshipping together that goes on at all levels, certainly between Anglican and Catholics and all the other groups and Catholics."

The document said Orthodox churches were indeed "churches" because they have apostolic succession and that they enjoyed "many elements of sanctification and of truth." But it said they lack something because they do not recognize the primacy of the pope  a defect, or a "wound" that harmed them, it said.

"This is obviously not compatible with the doctrine of primacy which, according to the Catholic faith, is an 'internal constitutive principle' of the very existence of a particular church," the commentary said.

Despite the harsh tone of the document, it stresses that Benedict remains committed to ecumenical dialogue.

"However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive, it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith," the commentary said.

The document, signed by the congregation prefect, U.S. Cardinal William Levada, was approved by Benedict on June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul  a major ecumenical feast day.

There was no indication about why the pope felt it necessary to release the document, particularly since his 2000 document summed up the same principles. Some analysts suggested it could be a question of internal church politics, or that it could simply be an indication of Benedict using his office as pope to again stress key doctrinal issues from his time at the congregation

just religious palaber, why doesn't somebody write him and tell him that when he rids his "church" of the battalions of hellbound homosexual predatory child molesting "priests", we MIGHT start paying mind to the paperwork emanating out of rome?

its ecclesiatical garbage at best, not worthy of consideration.

2007/7/10 15:37

MrBillProMember

Joined: 2005/2/24Posts: 3283Texas

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worm4Christ wrote:just religious palaber, why doesn't somebody write him and tell him that when he rids his "church" of the battalions of hellbound homosexual predatory child molesting "priests", we MIGHT start paying mind to the paperwork emanating out of rome?

""THE POPE CITED THE COUNCIL OF TRENT AS AUTHORITY FOR HIS POSITION ON MARY. The Council of Trent was a Catholic council held from 1545-1563 in an attempt to destroy the progress of the Protestant Reformation. This council denied every Reformation doctrine, including Scripture alone, and grace alone. Trent hurled 125 anathemas (eternal damnation) against Bible-believing Christians, including these:

"If any one shall deny that the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore entire Christ, are truly, really, and substantially contained in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; and shall say that He is only in it as a sign, or in a figure, or virtually--let him be accursed" (Canon 1).

"If any one shall say that the substance of the bread and wine remains in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, together with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the blood, the outward forms of the bread and wine still remaining, which conversion the Catholic Church most aptly calls transubstantiation--let him be accursed" (Canon 2).

"If any man shall say that Christ, the only begotten Son of God, is not to be adored in the holy sacrament of the Eucharist, even with the open worship of latria, and therefore not to be venerated with any peculiar festal celebrity, nor to be solemnly carried about in processions according to the praiseworthy, and universal rites and customs of the holy Church, and that he is not to be publicly set before the people to be adored, and that his adorers are idolaters--let him be accursed" (Canon 6).

"If anyone shall say that the ungodly man is justified by faith only so as to understand that nothing else is required that may cooperate to obtain the grace of justification, and that it is in no wise necessary for him to be prepared and disposed by the motion of his own will ... let him be accursed" (Canon 9).

"If anyone shall say that justifying faith is nothing else than confidence in the divine mercy pardoning sins for Christ's sake, or that it is that confidence alone by which we are justified ... let him be accursed" (Canon 12).

The Council of Trent has not been rejected by modern Catholicism. The modern Popes and Councils continue to cite it as authoritative. The Vatican II Council of the mid-1960s referred to Trent dozens and dozens of times, quoted Trent's proclamations as authority, and reaffirmed Trent on every hand. The New Catholic Catechism cites Trent no less than 99 times. That is my own count. There is not the slightest hint that the proclamations of the Council of Trent have been abrogated by Rome. At the opening of the Second Vatican council, Pope John XXIII stated, "I do accept entirely all that has been decided and declared at the Council of Trent." All of the Catholic leaders who attended Vatican II signed a document containing this statement.""

Pope John Paul commissioned Bishop Ratzinger to write Dominus Iesus back in 2000 I believe the date was. It caused a big controversy with the Protestants but the Pope John Paul signed the thing. It stated basically that the RCC was the Only True Church.

2007/7/10 15:47

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Pope: Other Christian denominations not true churches.

He has a half truth here.. if only he would realize that rome isn't the true Church either.

In Christ - Jim

2007/7/10 15:52

MrBillProMember

Joined: 2005/2/24Posts: 3283Texas

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Of course he's right. I mean, billions and billions of people will go to hell because they don't believe in a religion headed by a man in a white robe, who is elected by men in black and red robes, who live in a magnificently wealthy city-state which draws revenue from all over the world, while most of their parishioners live below the poverty line in third world countries. Makes perfect sense.

Unfortunately, most of what passes as Evangelical Theology stems from Roman Catholic ideology. All one need do is read The Council of Trent, and you will see many of the issues that were done away with in the Reformation coming in full force through supposedly Protestant churches.

Perhaps if men like Finney would have read the Councils of Trent, maybe he would have seen that he was more in line with Rome, than with the Evangelical Church of the day. But sadly, he pressed his beliefs upon many, and even popularized them, and here we are today.

Of course there are many more that are worse, but when one leaves the doctrine of justification by faith alone, by grace alone, you open the door to justification by man's work.

I have strayed, but it is time for the Protestant church to realize why we are in the mess we are in, and to seek by the grace of God how to live in such a way we may glorify Him in the days we live.